Lawsuit: Cops refused to help driver in CTA crash

February 25, 2009

The truck driver who plowed into a Red Line station in Chinatown last April, killing two people and injuring 21 others, suffered a "medical condition" just before the crash, a federal lawsuit filed by the truck driver's family alleged.

The lawsuit filed by Donald Wells' wife, Ann Darlene Wells of Metamora, Mich., alleges that Chicago police ignored pleas by family members for medical treatment for Wells, who was "talking incoherently . . . and otherwise behaving abnormally" during the 48 hours he was in police custody.

Chicago Fire Department personnel work to tow away a tractor-trailer which rammed into the Red Line elevated train stop in Chinatown on Cermak Road, Friday, April 25, 2008. (Chicago Tribune photo by Alex Garcia)

Wells, 64, who was suffering "from a mental condition and...experiencing severe physical and psychiatric ailments" while in police custody, died of pneumonia and multiple organ failure in June, the lawsuit said. The suit alleged that police indifference to Wells' medical condition contributed to his death. The suit names the City of Chicago and numerous police officers as defendants.

The Tribune reported at the time of the crash that Wells was taken to Stroger Hospital immediately, but he refused treatment in part because he had no health insurance. Wells had inexplicably missed a scheduled pickup in Champaign before the crash.

The family's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for the city's Law Department also couldn't be reached for comment on the lawsuit.